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April 12, 2010

G7: Twins 5, Red Sox 2

Lester (5-9-4-3-5, 107) was off from the start, facing eight batters in the first inning (three singles, two walks) and five more in the second, throwing 58 pitches in the two innings. He ended up going through the order three times in his five innings.

A day after Clay Buchholz allowed the leadoff batter to reach base in all five of his innings, Lester put the first hitter on base in three of his five innings; all three scored.

Back-to-back doubles by Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz (off Pavano (6-4-1-1-4, 95)) gave Boston a run in the fourth. Flo's hit was to deep left and it was a fly that Delmon Young got twisted around on and tried to catch with his back to the infield; the ball hit off the heel of his glove.

The other run scored when Jeremy Hermida doubled, took third on Marco Scutaro's single, and scored on Dustin Pedroia's sacrifice fly to right.

Ortiz continued to look very bad at the plate, striking out twice and fouling out in his three other trips to the plate. Don and Jerry said earlier in the game that it sounds like Tito is already thinking about benching him -- and the fact that Ellsbury sat this one out was the only reason he was in there today.

The Red Sox will help the Twins christen their new outdoor ball park this afternoon. Amalie Benjamin has some photos from the press box.

Lester was meh (5-5-4-3-4, 94) against the MFY last week, while Pavano had a 7-6-1-0-6, 102 line against the Angels. As expected, Jacoby Ellsbury has the day off.

Peter Abraham notes that his Kansas City cab driver told him "the government has Nazi scientists from World War II locked up on military bases in the desert working on advanced weapons". Hahaha, what a nut! ... What's that you say? The CIA admits, at length on its own freakin' website, that it did recruit Nazi scientists after the war while letting others escape and resettle in South America, and then covered up that information for decades? Gee, it sounds more like a fact, Peter.

L is in New jersey for the week. We had another delay at the border, though it was much shorter this time.

yeah, it's possible. but if he knew something very close to what the guy said was true, i don't think he would have posted about it. what would be the point? he mentioned it because it's nutty -- and the guy probably would not shut up the whole time. you know how those kooky guys are ...

i like this setup. i tried to convince L to try it. we would not need to buy the cable package, since i already get mlbtv to watch at work. but no go since we would have to watch in the basement (we could arrange our laptops like a press box table!) and she could not watch on the upstairs tv (friday nights and other times).

Has anyone watched ESPN Gameday this year? I don't know if it's different from last year, but it's very trippy. It has this bird's eye view. When someone does hit the ball, say, to the outfield, it's pretty dramatic. It doesn't have pitch speeds, though.

It has spray charts and locations of outs. For instance, the Twins have only flown out to the OF once today. And all their hits landed well in front of our OF'ers.